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19 November 2012 10:36

Newly merged Baillieu Holst Ltd relies on GBST Shares™ as it expands its presence across Australia

GBST Holdings Limited (ASX: GBT), a global provider of securities transaction and fund administration software for the financial services industry, announces that the newly created investment advisory and stockbroking firm, Baillieu Holst Ltd, has gone live with a hosted implementation of its equities clearing and settlement platform GBST Shares™.

The migration of the 90,000 Baillieu client base, including 22,000 CHESS accounts, to the hosted GBST environment for the merged Baillieu Holst entity, had been scheduled as a six week implementation to meet the 12 November merger deadline. With an urgent need to cut over to a single platform in week four of the overall implementation, GBST responded immediately to Baillieu Holst and within a matter of days had proposed a solution, had it ratified and supported by the ASX, and the new system taken live.

GBST created the new Baillieu Holst environment while continuing to run the existing Holst system in parallel. Once the official ASX and ASIC compliance was undertaken, the two environments were merged to one and the Holst environment closed down.

FW Holst & Co and GBST have enjoyed a long association over 17 years and with regard to GBST Shares have recognised its superior functionality, particularly around cash management live-time balances.

The combined strength of the new entity sees Baillieu Holst’s more than 90 advisers in institutional sales, retail broking and wealth management, now operating with improved business efficiencies and reduced transaction costs that will improve adviser communications and service delivery to their clients.

Baillieu Holst Ltd’s Managing Director Gavin Powell said: “With GBST’s underpinning systems successfully in place, our new merged entity is well positioned to expand its presence across Australia, particularly into the Sydney retail broking market. And, our advisers are able to more effectively deliver their professional investment advice for successful client outcomes.”

Lindsay Mott, Director of Baillieu Holst, said: “We see GBST as the market leader in equities transactions and were convinced by its platform as well as its implementation and service capabilities.

“In a sensible world we had planned for a six week delivery of the project. When that was dramatically brought forward, GBST’s strategic approach to the issue and dedicated professional team were up to the challenge. GBST showed foresight, energy and professionalism in achieving a successful outcome for us. . The ASX, ASIC and other participants in financial markets should not be surprised that GBST has the ability to achieve this result in such a short time frame.”

GBST’s CEO of Capital Markets, Denis Orrock, said: “We congratulate Baillieu Holst on their exciting vision for the firm’s ongoing strength and expansion. We are also delighted that Holst’s extensive relationship with GBST has convinced the new entity of our capacity to help drive its business. In what became the fastest GBST Shares implementation ever, we have proven the out of the box capabilities of our technologies and the dedication and focus of our team to achieve successful outcomes for our customers.”

Lindsay Mott continued: “Seamless migration was the key to the project. While we’ve been powering through the back-office changes, all our clients needed to understand was that the new entity was operational. There could be no disruption to client service. They were to have immediate access to their portfolios, statements, confirmation notes and other related support services.

The GBST approach to the equities and wealth management investment transaction business will also enable Baillieu Holst to bring new products..

“In the near future there are a number of GBST applications, particularly at the advisers front end and technical communications, we believe will help advisers serve our clients,” Lindsay Mott concluded.

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About Baillieu Holst Ltd – www.baillieuholst.com.au
In October 2012, Victorian headquartered EL & C Baillieu Stockbroking Ltd and FW Holst & Co Pty Ltd agreed to merge to form Baillieu Holst Ltd in a move that has created a group serving in excess of 50,000 clients and with total funds under advice of $8 billion.

The merger of E.L. & C. Baillieu, established in 1889, and Holst, which traces its history back to 1893, creates a dynamic, Australian owned investment advisory and stockbroking firm, combining their experience and expertise in retail and institutional broking, wealth management, strategic financial planning, equity research and corporate services.

It has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Bendigo, Geelong, Newcastle and Perth as well as affiliations in Europe, Asia and North America.

About GBST - www.gbst.com
GBST (ASX: GBT), provides global technology services to the financial services industry, addressing our clients’ constant needs for innovation, competitiveness and responsive IT that truly enables business. Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, GBST is headquartered in Brisbane and has offices throughout Australia, in London and New York, and has operations in Hong Kong, Paris and Singapore.

About GBST Shares™
GBST Shares™ is an equities clearing and settlement platform with true multi-market, multi-currency, multi-instrument and multi-entity functionality. It enables trades across both Chi-X and the ASX for the execution, clearance and settlement trades across both venues.

With 70 percent of ASX trades running via GBST Shares™, this scalable back office equities system has become the defacto industry standard for the Australian stock broking marketplace. GBST Shares has been benchmarked to process more than one million trades per day, pre single instance, which is double the largest trading day ever recorded by a participating broker.

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